What films have you watched this week?

[Atticus]

Watched Shutter Island last night. Great look and atmosphere let down by a silly, drawn out story. As it was all coming together in the last half hour I stopped caring and regretted not watching a couple of episodes of The Sopranos.

[apatia77]

Watched Inception last night, enjoyed it but it wasn't epic imo, few cool moments, still one of the best films I have seen this year.

[NemesiS]

Watched Alien 3 last night on Film4. Nowhere near the stellar standards of the of the first and in particular the 2nd. But when Ripley kills herself at the end with the queen it would have been a fitting finale to the trilogy. Instead they milk it for one more with an absolute gash 4th and are now onto a fifth to try and go out on a high.

Also whilst i disagree that people who watch them are idiots, i do agree with Noobish Hat that the Harry Potter films are total rubbish. I read all the books upto the 5th when it got really stale and have watched the first four films. All of them bored me and considering the richness of the books, and i simply don't know why, but they just didn't translate into film for me. All of them have just felt soulless with no real substance to grab me as a viewer and i normally like films like this. I've watched each of them once which says it all for me as i'll watch most films if they are repeated on TV. Only mo, but i found them really shallow.

In a similar vein, i also didn't like LoTR's. I thought the whole trilogy was a boring plod through the countryside with a few battles and some awesome effects. I wanted to like them like the HR films but i just couldn't seem to get interested and they are another set that i've only watched once and probably won't again.

[Neon Ignition]

Went watching Harry Potter & The Deathy Hallows Part 1 last night.

Gave up on the books years ago as I found Rowling to be a poor writer who lucked out on mashing old/stolen ideas (like the wizard version of Twilights success ) but being the cinema whore I am I've stuck with the films with mixed feelings depending on the installment.

I do feel that taking everything aside and looking at HP7 as purely a Harry Potter film... it's by far the worst entry and generally a bad film in itself. It feels like it serves as a reminder as to why so much content was cut from the other 6 books translations and feels largely like nothing more than an excuse to print money. It's probably telling that the marketing campaign uses so many shots from Part 2 rather than this one.

It goes nowhere and they achieve very little leaving the second part with a huge amount to cover and explain. I get that the film is bound by the books story but setting so much of the film in the real world (specifically cliff tops, fields and woods) makes for a very dry experience which means the film contains pretty much none of the likeable elements of the series, it's mainly just the three of them moping about. Without the back end available it feels like there's some shocking plot conveniences abound as well.

[Dogg Thang]

I haven't read the book and I know it's gigantic but that always seems to be the danger when movies are made in pairs (or more). It's like there's no pressure to really get to where it's going. Like the difference between the Matrix sequels and the original. Even in LotR, The Two Towers - had that film had to stand completely alone, would we really have had half an hour (maybe more) of two hobbits being carried by a tree? Regardless of the books, if it to be one movie standing alone, the chaff would have gone.

[QualityChimp]

I swear, if I see another film where hobbits are being carried by trees for 30 minutes, I'm walking out the cinema!

I keep thinking of the Matrix trilogy comparisons too, as I can't think of many other back-to-back productions. I loved Reloaded, but hated Revolutions.

I enjoyed Potter Part 1, but it was always going to suffer like telling a joke without the punchline.

There was a lot more set in the real world, crazytaxinext, but I didn't mind as it made the British countryside look so beautiful. It was like a tourism advert or something!

[Darwock]

I don't know how Harry Potter ends but it's been guff for the past few movies anyway. The only good one was where they had the wizarding competition - and that was good because it was light hearted and funny. Then it went off on a po-faced tangent trying to be LOTR, but the whole thing just comes across as boring to me. I actually slept through most of the last one, it was just people talking and betraying each other.

[Neon Ignition]

It's likely an issue witht the book too but considering they're on the run they spend an awful lot of time stationary and we never get to see the war that's always mentioned or what's happening to the massive supporting cast. Seven films out of eight in and Voldermort is still a massively unconvincing threat. There pretty much is only around 20 minutes of required viewing to Part 1, the HP series is a really lightweight fantasy so they'd have been much better served to do a single 2hr 30m film. It's never been a great series but it seems like its headed to end on a whimper.

Score - 4/10

[spagmasterswift]

Its for kids though innit?!

[Skull Commander]

It's likely an issue witht the book too but considering they're on the run they spend an awful lot of time stationary and we never get to see the war that's always mentioned or what's happening to the massive supporting cast. Seven films out of eight in and Voldermort is still a massively unconvincing threat. There pretty much is only around 20 minutes of required viewing to Part 1, the HP series is a really lightweight fantasy so they'd have been much better served to do a single 2hr 30m film. It's never been a great series but it seems like its headed to end on a whimper.

That pretty much sums up my feelings as well. I wanted something climatic and all we got was a nature ramble with some puberty thrown in for good measure.

*Edit* ...and some hamfisted Nazi/Jew comparism.

[NemesiS]

Glad to see i'm not the only one who thought LoTR's was boring

Agree with the Matrix as well. Went rapidly downhill after the first.

Anyone seen the new Jackass yet?

[Neon Ignition]

Ironically, I found the 2nd entries to be the worst in both LOTR and the Matrix series with the 3rd installments being much better

I've seen the new Jackass, it's quite good. The 3D I think is required at all the cinema showings but it's not really used expect for one or two shots. For me the new film is a lot better than the disappointing second one. They're supposed to be putting the unused footage out as Jackass 4 next year.

[JazzFunk]

Watched Jimmy McGovern's Priest over the weekend, it was really, really good, ultra-absorbing, lots of discussable issues there, best film I've seen in a fairly long time, though it seemed to be crammed full of famous Liverpool thesps (Aveline from Bread, Tony Booth, Harry Cross from Brookside and Denzel from Only Fools And Horses, to name a few) which was pretty disarming.

Also watched the Daniel Craig Casino Royale, was pretty disappointed by it. Craig is a good, badass Bond but there's something lacking about the film as a whole, there are a few great scenes (

->Open Spoiler<-

the 'poisoned' bit, the torture sequence etc.

) but no real consistent momentum to it and the main 'Boss' in it feels pretty weedy. Maybe it suffered because I was expecting it to be really good, god knows.

[spagmasterswift]

JazzFunk, watch the next one and then rethink.

[zeroboo]

Glad to see i'm not the only one who thought LoTR's was boring

Agree with the Matrix as well. Went rapidly downhill after the first.

Anyone seen the new Jackass yet?

saw the new jackass last week. was a bit disappointed that they started going down the "disgusting" route. was still enjoyable but not as good as the 2nd one.

They really should have stopped with the second one...